Sean Adams 
How Design Makes Us Think 
And Feel and Do Things

From posters to cars, design is everywhere. While we often discuss the aesthetics of design, we don’t always dig deeper to unearth the ways design can overtly, and covertly, convince us of a certain way of thinking.
How Design Makes Us Think collects hundreds of examples across graphic design, product design, industrial design, and architecture to illustrate how design can inspire, provoke, amuse, anger, or reassure us.


Graphic designer Sean Adams walks us through the power of design to attract attention and convey meaning. The book delves into the sociological, psychological, and historical reasons for our responses to design, offering practitioners and clients alike a new appreciation of their responsibility to create design with the best intentions.
How Design Makes Us Think is an essential read for designers, advertisers, marketing professionals, and anyone who wants to understand how the design around us makes us think, feel, and do things.

About the author

Sean Adams is the chair of graduate and undergraduate graphic design at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. An AIGA Medalist and former AIGA National President, he is coauthor of Graphic Design Rules and the author of The Designer’s Dictionary of Type and The Designer’s Dictionary of Color.